The Burning Princess
“We are shackled gods. It is not others that restrain our potential but ourselves. We shackle ourselves because we know what we dream ourselves to be and fear it.” –attributed to the rogue psyker designated as “The Burning Princess” The life and true nature of this appallingly powerful rogue psyker, known by rumor and dark repute over the last few years (since her first recorded appearance during an uprising on Pellucida IX) as the “Burning Princess,” remains a mystery to the Holy Ordos. It is a mystery made all the more poignant and galling by the clear presence of a witch hunter’s brand on her cheek. The Burning Princess is an alpha-plus level rogue psyker and by some estimates the most powerful currently at large in the Calixis Sector. She still appears to be a young woman in her late teens, and if this is true, it may be possible that her powers will only increase with maturity should she survive. The files the Tricorn keeps on her are both extensive, and frustratingly vague. The Inquisition knows that she is an extremely powerful pryokine, and is a dangerously strong telepath as well. Although the Scholastica Psykana classifies her as a ‘low level alpha’ psyker (especially in comparison to some far more dangerous examples the Inquisition and Imperium have had to deal with), she is still extremely dangerous. Already a pyrokinetic of extraordinary ability, she can transform herself seemingly without effort or risk into a walking holocaust of flames, able to focus her abilities with pinpoint accuracy to char a hole through warship armor. A wanderer, she has been encountered working alongside several renegade and mutant groups, including the Stigmatus Covenant, and even for a time upon the pirate raider vessel Storm Walker operating out of the Hazeroth Abyss. Such is her threat that a specially equipped taskforce under the noted Witch Hunter Fhendahl was founded to trace and apprehend her. It successfully tracked her to an abandoned settlement on the ill-reputed world of Dusk, where she prevailed and everyone in Fhendahl’s mission burned, including the Witch Finder Himself. She is still at liberty, and her current whereabouts remain unknown. She also believed responsible for the Cathedral Mount Firestorm on Acreage (slaying the senior clergy of the planet along with more than ten thousand pilgrims, worshippers, and local citizens). This witch’s motivations remain as mysterious as her identity and true origins. After-action reports by traumatized survivors have claimed her both to be a dead-eyed marionette, seemingly uninterested in the horrors she inflicts, while others paint her as a laughing devil, filled with malice and sadistic glee. The truth remains unproven. She is a known associate of the radical Inquisitor Hettesh Kane, though the extent of this relationship is not known. However, little else is known about her. Savants of several notable Inquisitors have searched the deepest info-tombs in the Tricorn to little avail. All they have discovered is charred records of a young child named “Lottie,” who manifested powerful abilities before her tenth birthday. The records indicate a Witch Hunter team was sent to apprehend her for the Black Ships, but the parchments recording the results of that action are destroyed. Researchers cannot even discover which planet she is from. The Inquisition has declared her Hereticus Extremis, and ordered her termination. However, since the fate of the last team sent to kill her, the Conclave has had no success in this matter. There are two likely reasons a team of Throne Agents could come into contact with Lottie. The first is that they are sent as a kill-team to prosecute and eliminate her. In this case, the team’s problem is two-fold. The first is finding her amongst the vastness of the Calixis Sector. They may have to infiltrate or interrogate their way through several heretical organizations just to find her. Once they do, the problem becomes one of killing her. If the Throne Agents are smart, they requisition (or otherwise acquire) powerful anti-psyker weaponry and have a brilliant plan. The only up-side is that Lottie does not seem to travel with a retinue or bodyguards. She prefers a solitary existence, which could prove to be her biggest weakness. The other possibility is that the Throne Agents encounter her in the process of another investigation entirely. Lottie does not appear to lead uprisings or instigate rebellions. Rather, she seems to prefer to work as a mercenary, hiring out her considerable skills to others. In this case, the Throne Agents may not be equipped or prepared to deal with her, and she may prove to be merely a distraction leading the Throne Agents away from the true mastermind behind whatever diabolical plot they are investigating.